28 Before 28

It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog. I started up a Dutch blog again, and this time I hope that neither this blog nor the Dutch one suffers from my having two blogs. The reason I didn’t post for a while has nothing to do with the Dutch blog though. It’s to do with the fact that my braille display needed repairing and they took it into the shops for repairs rather than trying to fix the thing while I waited. This originally meant, or so I thought, that I couldn’t use the computer at all. Thankfully, I figured out the text-to-speech functionality and could do some Facebooking and blogging in Dutch. The synthesizer doesn’t do English though, so blogging here was out.

Even though I had over a week without blogging, I didn’t get lots of inspiration, because I couldn’t read the mostly English-language posts I usually get my inspiration from. I am determined to write though, so I’m going with Ginny Marie’s spin cycle prompt. The prompt is “28 things”. I originally thought about taking the easy way out and writing 28 random facts about myself, but then I realized I am 28 right now. Therefore, I choose to write 28 things I did before turning 28. Not all of these are truly achievements I made, but oh well.

Went to three different elementary schools and two secondary schools. Graduated high school in 2005.

Learned three foreign languages (English, German and French) and Latin. Forgot all but English and a tiny bit of German.

Taught myself calendar calculation.

Went to a school prom. Once or maybe even twice.

Had crushes on only three different people. All of them were unapproachable. I don’t know whether I could even call what I feel for my husband a crush.

Went to college and university. I attended college for a year and university for all of two months.

Took five college courses in psychology. Passed two, failed one and never took the test for two.

Lived on my own. For three months, but I did it!

Got married.

Lived in four different cities/towns, three of which are in the province of Gelderland.

Rented an apartment with my husband.

Got two cats.

Traveled to France, Germany, England, Switzerland, Italy and Russia.

Had eight major surgeries, seven of which I had before the age of nine. The eighth was my eye surgery in 2013.

Got my wisdom teeth and had them out.

Was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, borderline personality disorder and a host of other psychiatric conditons that I got dediagnosed with again.

Was on at least a dozen different medications, ten of which were psychiatric medications.

Had at least a dozen online journals and blogs.

Was the owner for four or five Yahoo! E-mail groups and one Facebook group. None of them are currently active. Created another (also inactive) Facebook group and became a co-admin for a Yahoo! group and a Facebook group that are both active at age 28.

Wrote a resume. Once. Because it was a college requirement.

Spoke to two members of parliament in person. One came to my high school and the other came to the blindness rehabiliation center. Both were from the Christian party.

Was a member of the Socialist Party.

Voted for them only once and voted for two other parties, both on the left of the political spectrum.

Participated in two debating contests representing my high school.

Was a member of a children’s choir even though I cannot sing to save my life.

Owned the DSM-5, the current edition of the psychiatric manual, even though it’s not in use in the Netherlands yet. Read most of it.

Had twelve computers, three braille displays (and got my fourth one just after my 28th birthday) and four mobile phones. All of my computers were laptops and none of my cellphones were smartphones.

What a great prompt and what a lot of things you’ve done – I do like you 28 before 28 list. That’s a lot of surgeries before the age of nine and a lot of meds too. Keep going with the autobiography though – sounds like it would be a very interesting read 🙂